It's Your Fault
by Pearlshipping Vault Collective
Summary: Get off me, fatty," I say, lamely attempting to push him off. He tickles my side with his free arm, making me squirm. "But you're so comfy, Dawn," he replies. His breath smells like Skittles. Pearlshipping, feat. Zealouszoroark/Mister Inconsistent


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It's all Ash's fault. All of it. _Everything._ Everything is Ash's fault. The supermarket not having any chocolate ice-cream in stock, just when I was really craving it? Ash's fault. Our school uniform being completely shapeless? Ash's fault. Global warming? Ash again. The fact that he's now lying on top of me, with his arm bent underneath my back at a very awkward and painful angle? Ash's fault!

Over his shoulder, the clothes line swaying gently in the light breeze that normally accompanies this time of day. There are a few plastic clothes pegs lined up on the string above our heads, and a few more scattered on the ground around us. Maybe it's one of those that's digging into my shoulder blade… Ow. I draw my focus from the clothesline back to Ash's face, hovering centimetres from my own.

He's grinning at me. That stupid, lopsided grin that he gets only when he's feeling especially proud of himself, his brown eyes sparkling. Obviously he's not in as much pain as I am.

"Get off me, fatty," I say, lamely attempting to push him off.

He tickles my side with his free arm, making me squirm. "But you're so _comfy_ , Dawn," he replies. His breath smells like Skittles.

I mutter and push against his chest, trying to at least shift some of his weight off me. It doesn't work. "Damn it, Ash. Could you move, please?"

He just laughs at me. Exactly the type of annoying, smug thing you'd expect Ash to do in such a situation. He has a habit of laughing at inappropriate times. Mostly at me. I jab him in the ribs to show him my displeasure, and he cries out in pain. "Ow! What'd you do that for?"

I somehow manage to shrug, despite having his full weight on me. "Felt like it."

He glares at me, and I poke my tongue out at him. He laughs, making his eyes crinkle up at the corners. It makes me smile. He looks so cute and innocent. He reminds me of a little kid sometimes. He's been acting like a little kid all day today, really. That's the whole reason we're here, actually. He wanted to do what we used to do every time I went over to his house – he wanted to see who could swing on the clothesline the longest.

Ash has one of those clotheslines that practically beg children to swing on them. A big, green Hills Hoist, with steel wires. It used to have those flimsy yellow ones, but we managed to snap those, so his parents got steel ones instead. They hurt your hands a lot more, but they also feel a lot more supportive when you're hanging from them.

We used to get in so much trouble for it when we were younger. I lost count of how many times I heard my mother say, "Just because he dared you to doesn't mean you had to swing on the clothesline, Dawn. You're going to seriously injure yourself one day!" Unfortunately for me, she was right.

There's a reason I stopped swinging on Ash's beloved clothes line – and it's not because I'm nearly 16 and have deemed myself too mature and cool for such things. Not at all. Again, it's all Ash's fault.

I was going perfectly. I'd jumped from the trampoline and had grasped the wire tightly, and the force of my jump had sent me swinging round at what felt like a million miles an hour. There's nothing to describe that moment. The one where you're flying through the air, forced to squeeze your eyes shut so they stop watering, where your hands are starting to sweat and slip but you refuse to let go because you don't want the feeling of complete freedom to end.

And then Ash just _had_ to ruin it. He decided that I'd been on there long enough, and he wanted a go. He was yelling out to me, but I wasn't listening. I didn't want to get off. So I just kept swinging, kicking my legs out every time I felt myself slowing down. I didn't see Ash jumping off the trampoline and reaching for the clothesline. I kicked out. I kicked him. We both screamed. He grabbed onto my legs in his panic, and I couldn't hold the extra weight. We both fell to the ground screaming, and landed in a tangled heap not unlike the one we're in now. But, that time, I landed even more awkwardly. My right leg took the full force of all of my weight _and_ all of Ash's. Not surprisingly, it broke.

I had to put up with my leg being in a cast for a full 8 weeks. You'd be surprised how quickly you get sick of sitting on your *whywouldyouusethisword* watching TV, especially when your attention span is as short as mine. After suffering through that cruel and unusual form of punishment, I found it a _lot_ easier to refuse when Ash dared me to a clothesline race.

Until today. We were sitting there on his back porch, eating homemade nachos and having way more Coca-Cola and Skittles than is good for us, when he turned to me and said, "Let's have a clothesline race."

My immediate reaction was to not very politely tell him that he could shove his clothes line race where the sun doesn't shine, but he persisted. I tried so hard to say no, but he just looked so damn _cute_ , with those big brown puppy dog eyes and innocent pout; I couldn't refuse.

And so, next thing I knew, I found myself standing rather unsteadily beside Ash on the trampoline, trying to balance myself and ignore the churning of nachos, Skittles and Coke in my stomach.

"It used to seem so much further away," I said nostalgically, leaning across and reaching for the wire. "We haven't done this in years…"

"You ready?" Ash asked, smiling at me.

I chose to ignore my body's protests and nodded, completely disregarding the fact that I could actually _feel_ the coke dissolving the melted cheese in my stomach. For a tiny moment, I got the strangest notion in my head. I actually considered reaching out and _holding_ Ash's hand. I have no idea why. I just felt like I should. I didn't though. Instead, I clasped the steel wire firmly and set my feet the right distance apart to get optimum launching power.

I shook my fringe out of my eyes, and smiled. "Three…"

"…Two…" Ash sounded like a three-year-old as he continued the countdown.

"…One!" We cried in unison, jumping from the trampoline at the same time.

It wasn't like I remembered. There was only one second where I felt like I was flying, one second where I felt like I was eight years old again. And then Ash knocked into me, or maybe I knocked into him, I'm not sure. And the clothesline made this awful screeching noise, and I screamed, and Ash laughed, and we fell. From the clothesline, we fell onto the rather hard ground. And just to make things worse, I fell first and Ash fell on top of me.

And now here we are. I can see a snapped clothesline wire dangling somewhere in my peripheral vision. Oh, his parents are going to be absolutely _thrilled_ about that.

Ash's voice pulls me out of train of thought. "What'd you do wrong?"

I tilt my head to the side quizzically and reply, "What do you mean 'What'd you do wrong?'? I didn't do anything wrong! That was your fault."

He sounds indignant as he replies, "My fault? How was that _my_ fault?"

I roll my eyes. " _You're_ the one who made the stupid suggestion that we swing on the clothesline."

"Well _you're_ the one who _agreed_ to my stupid suggestion," he retorts.

"I wouldn't have agreed if you hadn't have kept bugging me about it. You started it!" I tell him. And yes, before you point it out, I am well aware of the fact that I sound very much like a toddler chucking a temper tantrum.

Ash looks shocked. "I did not! How dare you accuse me of such things." He pulls his arm out from underneath me and uses it to prop himself up.

I pout and tilt my chin up in a defiant way, even though it doesn't really work from this angle. "You did so." The clothes line makes a scary noise, sort of like a moan, but I don't really pay attention to it, because I've realised that Ash's face is getting closer to mine. I've never noticed that his eyes were _that_ brown before… I can still smell Skittles on his breath. He's not saying anything, and for some stupid reason I find myself unable to shut up. "It's all your fault…" My sentence trails off as his lips brush mine, and suddenly I'm not so sure that it's the fall from the clothesline that's making my heart beat so fast.

He pulls back, and just sort of smiles down at me for a second. And then, without thinking, I close my eyes and lift my chin up to kiss him again. This time, when we part, he's got an ear-to-ear grin. " _That_ ," he says quietly, "was _your_ fault."

I open my mouth to protest, but am interrupted by the clothesline collapsing with an almighty 'CRASH!' We flinch as pegs scatter around us and the clothesline itself makes a horrible sort of squeal as it grinds against the trampoline frame and comes to rest. There's complete silence for a few moments as we survey the damage.

Then I turn my head to look up at Ash, and find him staring down at me, laughing. It's infectious – straight away, I start giggling maniacally too. After a few minutes we manage to calm ourselves down.

I smile up at him, and say the only thing that I think fits the situation, "You started it."

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 **By ZealousZoroark (fanfiction name: Mister Inconsistent)**

 **This story was submitted into the OneShot Competition in PearlFest 2014.**

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